[Oculus]

This reminds me of a very similar campaign Paypal did to help jumpstart the online payments market. Paypal offered $20 to anyone for opening an account or referring a new user[1]. This served to help rapidly grow a market of Paypal users before one existed.

1 (I highly recommend watching the full conversation as it's immensely interesting) - http://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=11m21s

[battani]

The difference being that most of these students will receive the free bitcoin and hold, hoping they appreciate in value, instead of transacting and contributing to the network effect.

[beaner]

Is this myth not dead yet? People spend bitcoin and want to spend it. There is also speculation and hoarding, but no universal law that says you can't do both.

$10 isn't even much to hoard. If the price goes up 10x that's still just $100. This is more like, "Oh, you got our drinks, I'll pay you back in btc!" kind of money.

[tron657]

How and when did hoarding bitcoin become a myth? Last I checked number of transactions per day was decreasing. And the C2C aspect you describe is unlikely to take off given the ease of cash or tools like Venmo, and lack of availability of bitcoin apps on iOS.

The myth here is that "people want to spend bitcoin." Just take a look at the bitcoin transaction volume merchants are seeing beyond the first few days.

[beaner]

My point was not that hoarding is a myth - my point was that "people will not spend bitcoin, because they will only hoard it" is a myth.

Have you actually talked to people who own bitcoin? They want places to spend it.

> Just take a look at the bitcoin transaction volume merchants are seeing beyond the first few days.

This doesn't really mean anything. First-day enthusiasim can't be held as representative of the greater trend. The greater trend being that more merchants are accepting bitcoin over time, and more bitcoin is being spent on real things.

[baby]

> Last I checked number of transactions per day was decreasing.

Are you looking day to day trends? Because if you step back a little you'll see that transactions have done nothing but increase.

[battani]

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions

We see a decrease since December and otherwise flatlining. And this includes the trading volume that happens on the exchanges which has increased.

[baby]

Only if you compare it to the peak of December, otherwise it's clearly rising.

[darksim905]

It's not a myth because it's true. There are so many people holding on to it as investments that it's not even funny. There are people making so much money off of bitcoin it's ridiculous.

[beaner]

I was saying that the myth is that people don't want to spend bitcoin.